Carabineros (Spain)

The was an armed carabiniers force of Spain under both the monarchy and the Second Republic. The formal mission of this paramilitary gendarmerie was to patrol the coasts and borders of the country, operating against fraud and smuggling. As such the performed the dual roles of frontier guards and customs officials.

The force was established in 1829 and lasted until 1940 when it was summarily disbanded and merged with the Guardia Civil.''Real decreto organizando el Cuerpo de Carabineros de Costas y Fronteras para impedir el contrabando, 31 de marzo de 1829 - Gaceta de Madrid nº39'', p. 153
/ref>Real decreto sobre la organización de Carabineros de Costas. Instituto, organización, personal e inspección general del Cuerpo de Carabineros de Costas y Fronteras. 2 de abril de 1829 - Gaceta de Madrid nº40'', p. 157
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Motto and uniforms

The motto of the was: (Morality, Loyalty, Courage, and Discipline). They were stationed along all the Spanish land borders, in the maritime provinces and in Madrid.

Their uniform was dark blue with red facings until the 1920s and thereafter greyish green.

Commanders

Among the notable commanders of the corps included José Olaguer Feliú (1923–1927), José María Galán and Gonzalo Queipo de Llano (1934–1936).

History

First hundred years

The Corps was established as the 'Royal Carabinier Corps of the Coasts and Borders' () by a royal decree issued by King Fernando VII on 9 March 1829. It was led by Field Marshal José Ramón Rodil at the time that Luis López Ballesteros was Minister of Finance.Real decreto de organización del Cuerpo de Carabineros del Reino, 9 de diciembre 1842 - Gaceta de Madrid nº2985
/ref> Shortly thereafter, in 1833, the corps was renamed as 'Carabiniers of the Royal Finance' (). Placed under the Finance Ministry they went through a period of gradual neglect and by 1842 the were almost dysfunctional as a corps. Field Marshal Martín José de Iriarte was then entrusted with their reorganization. Thus the corps was reformed and re-organised as the 'Carabinier Corps of the Kingdom' () in order to replace the former ineffective and discredited body.

At the time of the Restoration the and the , the other paramilitary Spanish corps, were placed under the War Ministry, "for a better organization and discipline", being given a military character by means of a law that developed and modified certain aspects of the 1878 Constitutive Army Law (). The latter set the functions of the Armed Forces following the Spanish Constitution of 1876.Ramón Gómez Martínez, ''El Estatuto Jurídico-Constitucional del militar de carrera en España. Antecedentes, fundamento y situación actual.'' Tesis doctoral. 2008 Universidad de Granada. Facultad de Derecho, P. 111-114
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In August 1923 Lieutenant General José Olaguer Feliú was named General Director of the . Despite this being a time of economic hardship, he was able to improve conditions of service within the corps; reducing the daily working hours to twelve. He also achieved the expansion and improvement of the Carabinier Corps' Schools (), where recruits were trained. General Olaguer Feliu was responsible for the construction of new quarters and repairing the existing ones; for the founding of schools for the sons and daughters of the in certain locations. Finally José Olaguer Feliú provided better schooling and conditions for orphans of at the San Lorenzo de El Escorial Carabinier' Orphans School ().

In 1929, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the corps, a monument was built in recognition of the , at San Lorenzo del Escorial. In addition the Great Cross of the Civil Order of Beneficence () was awarded collectively to the members of the corps by King Alfonso XIII for deeds and services rendered by the in fighting fires, floods and the rescuing of shipwrecked persons.Real decreto concediendo al Cuerpo de Carabineros la Gran Cruz de la Orden civil de Beneficencia, con distantivo negro y blanco, p. 1674, 10 de septiembre 1929 - Gaceta de Madrid nº253
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Philippines

The was established by the Captaincy General of the Philippines in 1842 to serve as the police force in the Spanish East Indies. Its role was eventually assumed by the .

Spanish Civil War

The Corps was one of the units of law enforcement where the 1936 Spanish coup of July 1936, which led to the Spanish Civil War, found the least support. With the regular army divided and the almost 50-50% split of the Civil Guard, the Republican government was heavily dependent on trained and properly equipped loyalist units such as the Carabineros and the Assault Guards to fight in the first crucial battles of the war. In mid-1936 there had been a total of about 16,096 men in the corps: 3 generals, 770 officers, 1,169 sub-officers and 14,154 . Approximately a third were in the territories that fell to the rebel side (about 5–6,000 men) after the coup and the two-thirds that were in the areas controlled by the Republic (about 10,000) remained loyal to the established government.

As a professional force of generally proven loyalty to the Republic, the carabineros formed an elite unit, which was integrated into the mixed brigades of the Republican Army. The Carabinier corps was increased in strength to 40,000 men. The initiative for this restructuring was taken by the then Finance Minister Juan Negrín.

Numbers of loyalist carabineros taken prisoner by the Army of Africa in August 1936 were executed in Badajoz.

Mixed brigades

Certain units of the People's Republican Army were entirely made up of , such as the 65th, 85th, 87th, 152nd, 179th, 211th, 222nd and 228th mixed brigades. The 3rd —the ''Tercera Brigada Mixta'' mentioned in the ''Si me quieres escribir'' song— and 5th were among the most distinguished mixed brigades of the loyalist army and saw action in most of the main battles of the civil war, including the Jarama, Brunete and the Teruel battles.

End of the war and disbandment

Following the Francoist victory in 1939 the Corps was disbanded. This measure was taken by the new regime as a reprisal for the majority of the carabinier units having remained loyal to the Republic during the rising of 1936. A law was passed on 15 March 1940 by which the Spanish Dictatorship terminated the , transferring its remaining personnel and assets to the Guardia Civil. Article number 4 of the aforementioned law stated:

Nine years after the end of Franco's dictatorship the Spanish Law 37/1984 of 22 October 1984 recognized the rights and services of those who had been part of the Armed Forces, Police and Carabiniers of the Spanish Republic (). This law gave back to the surviving members of the corps some of the rights and recognition of which they had been deprived in 1940.Ley 37/1984, de 22 de octubre, de reconocimiento de derechos y servicios prestados a quienes durante la guerra civil formaron parte de las Fuerzas Armadas, Fuerzas de Orden Público y Cuerpo de Carabineros de la República. ''"B.O.E. (Boletín Oficial del Estado del Gobierno de España)"''. Núm. 262. 1 de noviembre de 1984, pp. 31689 a 31690
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References

External links

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